Preparing land for an edible garden

It's April, officially spring and here is a check on weather. The weather today is similar to what it was in the months of January and March. I don't feel spring yet.

The not-so-spring-weather did not deter me from taking first steps to converting a grass lawn into something useful. Grass is useful but needs to be removed to prepare land for growing food. In doing so, there were a few missteps that happened and their remedial actions I took. Continue reading to know both sides.

The area of my house that I chose to use as a vegetable garden was covered with grass. It was not used for active agriculture in many years. The good thing about that was there were no residual fertilizers that affected the soil. The downside was the soil was too hard to work and acidic and needed amendments to make it suitable for growing vegetables. Most soils in New Jersey are slightly acidic which makes them ideal for growing peaches, blueberries and other fruits.

In an attempt to cut costs and get the work done in less time and effort, I asked a farmer (who works for my landlord) to till the half acre plot of land that I was planning to use by his tractor. The sod on the land was hard to remove and so I thought a first pass by tractor would make the land clean and clear (or so I thought). The farmer agreed to do the work for me. I was happy with my resourcefulness as I got the work done for free. However, the land, with grass on it, after being tilled, looked like this.

Sod clumps all over

Results of bad decision 

A total disaster ! Tilling land without first removing the grass made trench like rows with the tractor's tines. The heavy sod that was dug remained as is and the whole thing, which was done in 25 minutes, later required many hours of work. It looked bad and felt bad. Isn't it common sense to get the grass removed first before tilling. Well yes but in my head I had a picture of the land being plowed nicely so that the grass would churn in the soil and after tilling, the land would become a sod free area ready to be seeded.  I felt a little angry at the farmer too who tilled the land. Couldn't he just advice not to till the land without getting the grass removed. On top of that, when the man stepped down from his tractor, he looked at me and said, well now you have to do the work to prep the area. I wish he just quietly left the scene without uttering a word after creating the mess. 

Common sense comes in small packets and it has to come at the right time to make sense. Apparently, a lot of common and uncommon shining itself after making a mistake. And so mistakes are good. For next few days, I waited for the weather to get better so that I could work the above area and make it more suitable. The weather didn't get better and seeing the mess from my living room window everyday was shattering my spirits. I researched a little on how I could use a hand tiller to till the land and make it more even. It may work. 

A couple of days later I went to Home Depot and rented a rear-tine self-propelled rototiller. 

Honda Rear Tine rototiller

Renting wasn't inexpensive but it was the only shot to fix the land. To explore other options, I thought about calling another farmer who was ready to fix the land. The cost of renting a tiller for a week or calling someone to do the work for me were almost same. Having someone else do the work would have made things so much easier and faster. However, after what happened to my land by the unwise decision to have someone else do the work, I wasn't sure if giving the land in another hand one more time was wise. I wanted to learn the basics of tilling land and doing it myself would help me understand the rototiller and the effort involved in using it. 

I rented the above rototiller for a day but ended up keeping it for a week. The first few hours of using the machine were spent in figuring how to bring the tines of the tiller into action. A whole day of rental cost spent and the tiller wasn't yet put to action. So, like I always do, sat on my computer and searched the keywords "why does my Honda rear tine rototiller not work". Turned out it was a minor thing that I was missing. The big boy was in the game. 

Using a tiller like above isn't all that hard. However, maneuvering it through an uneven piece of land with heavy sod is a work. Since the tiller was only about 2 feet wide and I was using it to till 10,000 sq ft of space, it wasn't difficult to figure out that this would be a time consuming task. I had to lift a few chunks of heavy sod from the path of the rototiller by hand as they would prevent the tiller from moving forward and there was a danger of damaging the tines. The machine turned out to be very handy and useful in making the land even and breaking down big chunks of grass. I left around 12 ft of space from the edges of the plot for accessibility and staying away from any utility lines. Seeing the tiller do it's wonderful work of breaking the sod on second day was so relieving. I tilled one third of the plot each day. The work should have been done in three days but cold spell of weather along with rain made working outside unsuitable on few days. At the end of six days and sore hands and shoulders, the land looked like this. 

The plot of land is much more even and workable. It is not entirely free of grass but in a shape where it could be put to work. I did not throw away all the sod that was removed. I put some in my compost bin and put aside some more for using it further in the season. I will write another post on how I plan to use the sod. The grass that still remains on the tilled land isn't all that bad. It's earthworms' food and an active ingredient of biological soil activity. Eventually, the grass will decompose in the soil. It may cause weed issues in hot summer months but I cannot be sure about it at this time.

A better approach to prepare a grass lawn to a vegetable garden would be to first remove the sod entirely by either using a sod-cutter or better yet, calling your nearby landscape designers. Landscapers do a good work of putting grass and also removing it. They do not however till the land (mostly). Once the sod is removed, using a tiller would be much quicker and easy. The rototiller is a handy equipment for garden and farm. It is best suited for small plots of land. I could have rented other machines to make things easier but nothing would have been cost-effective. I do not want to buy heavy equipment for my garden in my first year.

 I gave myself a dinner treat on the evening I completed the work of fixing the uneven, messy land. The entire effort was worth it. My next step is to amend the soil to make it more suitable for growing vegetables. More to come in next post.

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